Poll: Health Bar or Regenerating Health, what is your stance on this new trend?

[Jharry5]

Health bars usually, but regenerating health if it fits (for those games set in the future). It starts to fell wrong when it's something like the Call Of Duty series, which prides itself on realism and there you are just hiding for a few seconds before going back out there without a scratch on you...

 

[Uncompetative]

If anyone knows of an FPS that uses a realistic system like this, please tell me.

Deus Ex 1 and Red Orchestra, minus the bleeding to death.

Also, Operation Flashpoint and ArmA: Armed Assault. The WGL and ACE total conversion mods for Flashpoint and ArmA respectively take it a step further, with white-outs, bleeding and black-outs. ACE is even rumoured to be including medical evacuations, where you can lift your buddy out of the battlefield to be taken away for medical treatment.

This, although it's a rock-hard and unforgiving system to work with, unless you're a tactical gaming expert (I die all the time due to being knocked out by bullets in Flashpoint with WGL), is my favourite health system. I think it will be amazing when you can drag your buddy out of the line of fire, a helicopter sweeping over your head.

Good call.

I just hope that Codemasters doesn't "dumb-down" Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising too much, because it is on a console.

 

[Rajin Cajun]

I hate them all but that is because I grew up playing tactical shooters like Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, America's Army, SWAT 3, Operation Flashpoint, ARMA, etc. You got clipped in the head? Lights out gracie. Got caught by shrapnel? Hope you liked bleeding to death or being crippled the rest of the level or map. I prefer Tactical FPS' because they are a thinking man's game and kept the CS kiddies away like when the MOHAA community came up with the Realism Mod that everyone played and made everyone who made the game suck online go back to CS. Now obivously I realize every game isn't meant to be a tactical fps but I don't get why Ubisoft has decided to fuck up the only ones left on the market like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon just so they could sell them to the drooling masses.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

A mix of the two is the best. Health regeneration shouldn't ever be a staple in anything as it dumbs it down. It's one reason I can't stand CoD4 online. "Oh... I just shot this guy in the chest a few times but he ducked around a corner to regen that health... now I can shoot him again in the chest for an hour again!"

You mustn't play it much if you think it's hard to kill someone on CoD 4. Even if they have juggernaut, spraying bullets in their general direction kills pretty quickly. And if that's not enough, try hardcore mode. Heck, there's even 'Old School' mode if you really want it. For multiplayer, regenerating health works best if there's a reason you can't always escape to heal. In Halo 3 it's the fact that you can't run very fast, and certainly can't outrun anyone else. In CoD 4 it's the fact that people die so fast. It all works out.

I hate the annoying regenerating health (AKA "That stupid fucking wolverine healing factor every jackass space marine in the last three years has had"). Mainly because it slows down gameplay considerably. Very ironic considering it was invented to SPEED UP gameplay.
Then again, I never was enough of a loser at FPS games to have to backtrack halfway around the level to get another 20 hit points, which apparently some people do.

Aside that, the Wolverine Healing Factor makes your character a fucking pussy. When I play FPS games, I wanna be a cool person who runs around and blows heads off of enemies and shrugs at third degree radioactive burns. Sadly, Master Chief is a FUCKING. LOSER. Put him before enemy fire for about a third of a second, and he's dead as shit. Same goes for EVERYONE when confronted with the vile, useless, annoying system known as Wolverine Healing Factor.

If you had ever played, say, Half Life: Blueshift on hard you would not be making that claim about backtracking for health, especially since it's so slow because you have to carefully plan out every movement and do it with extreme care to survive once you run out of plentiful shotgun ammo. Master Chief dies in a third of a second? That's news to me. Maybe if you were really shit at the game, and you had someone playing co-op shooting you to keep your shields down then you could die that fast on legendary mode. But only just.

In fact, I have to wonder why if you were "never enough of a loser at FPS games to have to backtrack halfway around the level to get another 20 hit points" that low health should present a problem to you. If you're so divinely awesome that you never need an extra 20 hit points then clearly it shouldn't hinder you.

By the way, regenerating health wasn't designed to speed up gameplay; it was designed to make you take cover and attack in a tactical manner, instead of being a "cool person who runs around and blows heads off of enemies and shrugs at third degree radioactive burns". Actually, your use of 'cool' and 'loser' makes me wonder about your maturity.

By the way, I don't advocate 'regenerating helath for everything'. Some games, such as Team Fortress 2, are much better without it.

 

[ScAR_TiSsUE]

Depends on the game and what sort of challenges it offers. Wouldn't mind some kind of balance between the two. Maybe a regen bar which reduces in effectiveness, the more punishment you take. Then you have to use something to restore it to full efficiency. So you remain strong enough to fight and survive but get weaker and weaker until you restore yourself.

 

[crimsondynamics]

It doesn't matter what type of hit counter is implemented, as long as it works well within the context of the game.

Gears of War would be a different, less fluid experience with a health bar, and SWAT 4 would not be true to its tactical simulation nature with a regenerating bar. Each work equally well given their gameplay mechanics, and I wouldn't change them.

You're also forgetting no health bar at all, or insta-gibs, where you die with one shot regardless of where you hit. Call of Duty 4 single player would be nigh impossible to play with such a hit counter implemented.

Taking this to other genres, look at fighting games. Some use a health bar that replenishes after each round (Street Fighter). Others do not replenish after each round; instead the health bar replenishes slightly after each round, and fully replenishes once you are knocked out (King of Fighters). Still other fighting games uses the ippon (Karate Champ). Changing the health bar of Killer Instinct to ippon would be laugable and would completely cripple the original vision of the game.

Some games might work with more than one type of hit counter, but I wouldn't standardize the way hit points are tracked in a game. Different approaches favor different gameplay mechanics. Why would we want to do something that potentially limits gameplay?

 

[hellthins]

I don't mind regenerating health in games like Call of Duty, where you have very little health to begin with, but if it's a game where I do have a lot of health I don't much care for it. Especially if it's a game that can be pretty liberal with health packs.

 

[CoverYourHead]

I like the way health worked in Fall Cry 2 and Condemned, uses both and makes things more interesting.

Ninja Gaiden 2 was also a nice system, get hurt a bit from a small mistake, you'll be fine no real punishment, get your ass kicked because you're doing terrible, you're going to pay for it.

 

[Robyrt]

Regenerating health is one of the best gameplay innovations ever... for a single-player game. Having to backtrack to pick up a health pack, or lose progress because the autosave stranded me with one health point, is a terrible feeling. (Even in survival horror, I want to be able to carry around several large health packs.) You can still keep tension in this system - the new Prince of Persia, for instance, regenerates very slowly, so it is more urgent when you are about to die.

In multiplayer, there are definitely reasons for both. On the one hand, killing an opponent who'd been severely weakened 2 minutes ago isn't much of an accomplishment, and regen fixes this problem. On the other hand, a "realistic" game with regenerating health like Call of Duty feels really weird.

 

[Teachingaddict]

Personally, I prefer the Regenerating health bar, especially on games such as COD4, im all for health pick ups, but it kinda spoils the game when you can pretty much guess where a Health PAck or some other health related item is definately going to be, the regenerating health bar definately adds "suspense", take for instance COD4 on Veteran, bullets raining down, and you have to find shelter just to survive. Kinda adds to the realism as well.

 

[Uncompetative]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Goldeneye.

Most of enemies on Campaign deliberately missed you with their first shot - this was to alert you to the direction of the threat. You were Bond and could aim really adeptly with a floating gunsight (a bit like "mouselook" in PC shooters), although you were forced to stand still (something the developers screwed up when they went off to do Timesplitters). Because you were genuinely vulnerable you would either crouch behind cover or stand at a corner and lean out for an instant to do a headshot. No other console game has been as good since.

You could pick up a bullet-proof vest, which was useful because the enemies tended to fire at your chest. I think it was only the later "boss" enemies that went in for headshots.

Now, all of this "artificial stupidity" might have made the game too easy if it wasn't for the fact that you faced plenty of opponents. This is a good thing as far as 'movie realism' goes as you want to feel like Bond in a Bond game - capably empowered, yet beset by seemingly insurmountable odds. Yet, these days so much of the CPU is squandered on stuff that doesn't directly improve the gameplay that you tend to have very detailed, moodily-lit environments populated by relatively few enemies.

The health bar/vest condition bar was like a ring that only appeared in your vision when you got shot.

Personally, I dislike health packs, and strong regenerating shields - concentrating on Team SWAT in Halo 3 (terminal headshots). I would be quite interested in playing a custom game where you were 8 versus 8 with no respawns. The problem is that people tend to get bored waiting for the next round and tend to quit the game entirely; so I suppose it would only work with clans.

I don't like being injured and then having to backtrack to a health pack that the game wouldn't let me pick up and activate when I chose to use it. I think F.E.A.R. and Far Cry 2 do this. About the silliest system has to be the "chest resuscitator" thingy in Battlefield: Bad Company.

Maybe something could be done about actual respawns, so that you parachuted in, rather than appear behind an unwitting enemy...

 

[Fenring]

It really depends on the universe the game is set in. Regenerating health makes sense if its in a game with shields, but if you're just a soldier without a magic suit (Halo, most sci-fi games) or a mutation that vaguely makes sense (Far Cry). If the games has you just be a guy who has guns and stuff,then regenerating health doesn't make sense (Half-Life and F.E.A.R.).

 

[Nutcase]

snip

I'd also like to see games where fully automatic weapons are as inaccurate as they are in real life because the enemy is mostly just shooting to make you keep your head down and killing them is more a matter of outflanking and other tactics, not simply shooting them 4000 times.

Real guns are only hideously inaccurate when they're in the hands of somebody who thinks they're in a John Woo film.

Guns are accurate, within reason. Everything else in JMeganSnow's comment was spot on.

Most importantly, people in battlefield conditions - under enemy fire but seeing nothing but some muzzle flashes, on the move, carrying lots of important crap, having orders to carry out other than "hit the paper target", maybe a wee bit afraid too - are not accurate.

And since you typically play a solider or space marine, you're somebody trained to shoot a gun, to shoot accurately and kill as many hostiles as possible with as a few bullets as possible.

Well trained infantry on defense would do that. On the other hand, on attack they are expected to hit with only a single digit percentage of shots fired, with over 90% of shots fired for no other reason than to keep the enemy's heads down. Thus, casualties are prevented, and the enemy cannot move or gain information effectively. The attacking unit presses on to grenade range, to close combat, or flanks to get the enemy in a crossfire for the mop-up. See "fire and movement".

Compared to the teamwork it takes to execute these tactics, individual shooting skill with a rifle is stupidly easy. Everyone can learn it quickly to a decent level.

Also, to the people talking about regenerating health in multiplayer: In COD4, it takes about four bullets to kill you. Less if they use stopping power or hit you in the head, more if you're using juggernaut. If you didn't have regenerating health, you'd have people unable to get a kill streak going unless they're god, or you'd have increased health and added health pack, which result in a lot of people camping the fucking health packs.

I think that is a problem inherent in the slippery slope of kill streak -based gameplay.

The general nature of regeneration is to favor the good player over the bad. If the good player never got health back, he would at least eventually die and have to start over. I think it's lame because it cuts down on tactics, namely the tactic of wearing out the opponent. Only attacks that kill immediately are worth doing against a regenerator.

What I'd personally like to see gameplay-wise is more bleeding and functional damage like in ActionQuake2. When you are bleeding, and have a feeling that the person who shot you is following your blood trail, do you duck behind a corner to bandage (bandaging leaves you defenseless for a while), double back to set up an ambush and lie wait while the bleed is ticking damage on you, or rush the opponent directly to be rid of him ASAP? These are pretty interesting tactical choices compared to "shoot him first" in a non-bleed game.

Health dispensers are more fun than medpacks since they have the tradeoff of making you vulnerable for the duration of use. A medpack that goes in your inventory is the worst since it adds complication and does not give more tactical options. It's only acceptable for a survival or RPG game IMO.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I thought Halo's health system was well done: you still had a health bar, which could be recovered through the use of health packs, and you also had recharging "health" by way of shields. It made sense for the shields to recharge since Master Chief's armor has a generator built in which constantly recharges them.

I know. Why didn't that get carried on to the rest of the series?

One thing I'd quite like to experiment with would be a hybrid "tiered" system of damage.

Let's say you have your health bar which is green. You can take three types of damage:

Stun damage, which is represented by a section of your health bar turning blue.
Wound damage, which is represented by a section of your health bar turning red.
Life damage, which shortens your life bar.

Each type of damage counts from the far left of the hitpoint zone taken up by the next more serious type. So, if you've taken two Life damage, three wound damage and seven stun damage, then from right to left you have a small black zone, a slightly larger red zone, and a much larger blue zone, then it's green all the rest of the way.

Different weapons have different damage profiles. A tazer does huge amounts of stun but barely any wound and no life damage, for example, whereas a burn from a jet of steam is more wound than stun or life, and a sword does lots of life and wound, but not a lot of stun.

Stun damage regenerates quickly, Wound damage regenerates slowly, Life damage can only be restored by medkits, or spells, or whatever.

when your stun damage bottoms out you suffer minor penalties - your vision's a little blurry, your aim wavers. When your wound damage bottoms out you suffer major penalties - can't hear, can barely see, terrible aim. When your life damage bottoms out, you die.

Oh, and you make the bar VISIBLE.

I like this.

Anyway, people have pointed out Halo CE (see first quote). The system there was good. Star Wars Republic Commando had a similar system, shields and health, bacta stations in very weird places to heal health.

I like the F.E.A.R system most. Your health regenerates when below a certain threshold (and that threshold varies inversely with the difficulty level), above that you need Health kits. What I like about that part above HL2, though, is that you can actually carry health kits with you, similarly to Bioshock.

 

[DirkGently]

Spoiler

snip

I'd also like to see games where fully automatic weapons are as inaccurate as they are in real life because the enemy is mostly just shooting to make you keep your head down and killing them is more a matter of outflanking and other tactics, not simply shooting them 4000 times.

Real guns are only hideously inaccurate when they're in the hands of somebody who thinks they're in a John Woo film.

Guns are accurate, within reason. Everything else in JMeganSnow's comment was spot on.

Most importantly, people in battlefield conditions - under enemy fire but seeing nothing but some muzzle flashes, on the move, carrying lots of important crap, having orders to carry out other than "hit the paper target", maybe a wee bit afraid too - are not accurate.

And since you typically play a solider or space marine, you're somebody trained to shoot a gun, to shoot accurately and kill as many hostiles as possible with as a few bullets as possible.

Well trained infantry on defense would do that. On the other hand, on attack they are expected to hit with only a single digit percentage of shots fired, with over 90% of shots fired for no other reason than to keep the enemy's heads down. Thus, casualties are prevented, and the enemy cannot move or gain information effectively. The attacking unit presses on to grenade range, to close combat, or flanks to get the enemy in a crossfire for the mop-up. See "fire and movement".

Compared to the teamwork it takes to execute these tactics, individual shooting skill with a rifle is stupidly easy. Everyone can learn it quickly to a decent level.

Also, to the people talking about regenerating health in multiplayer: In COD4, it takes about four bullets to kill you. Less if they use stopping power or hit you in the head, more if you're using juggernaut. If you didn't have regenerating health, you'd have people unable to get a kill streak going unless they're god, or you'd have increased health and added health pack, which result in a lot of people camping the fucking health packs.

I think that is a problem inherent in the slippery slope of kill streak -based gameplay.

The general nature of regeneration is to favor the good player over the bad. If the good player never got health back, he would at least eventually die and have to start over. I think it's lame because it cuts down on tactics, namely the tactic of wearing out the opponent. Only attacks that kill immediately are worth doing against a regenerator.

What I'd personally like to see gameplay-wise is more bleeding and functional damage like in ActionQuake2. When you are bleeding, and have a feeling that the person who shot you is following your blood trail, do you duck behind a corner to bandage (bandaging leaves you defenseless for a while), double back to set up an ambush and lie wait while the bleed is ticking damage on you, or rush the opponent directly to be rid of him ASAP? These are pretty interesting tactical choices compared to "shoot him first" in a non-bleed game.

Health dispensers are more fun than medpacks since they have the tradeoff of making you vulnerable for the duration of use. A medpack that goes in your inventory is the worst since it adds complication and does not give more tactical options. It's only acceptable for a survival or RPG game IMO.

Still, in games like COD4 or Rainbow Six, you're the best of the best. And sometimes you don't have the chance to try and flank out an enemy, or don't carry a ton of grenades. You're only option is to come out of cover, plant a bullet in somebody, and move on. I do think that LMG's and the like should definitely be toned down in accuracy. They're guns designed for covering fire, and it is irritating that they're easily used as assault rifles with huge magazines and longer reload time.

I don't quite think that instant kills are the only things worth doing against a regenerater. As I said (or atleast think I said), in COD4, you can easily kill someone before they're aware you're shooting at them. Halo, on the hand is different, but I'm not as familiar with H3's multiplayer as I am COD4's.


I like that bleeding/bloodtrail system, but it doesn't work in a game like COD4. It's not designed for that style of gameplay. The weakest amount of damage you can take is being hit by a thrown object; frag grenade, stun, flashbangs or smoke, and taking three of those will kill you. A different FPS where you have a lot more health it might good in.

You might want to take a look at Rainbow Six Vegas 2's "High Stakes" mode. In it, you start with less ammo and get less gadgets ('nades, gps locaters, radar jammers, motion sensors, etc), your guns become far less inaccurate when not zoomed in, encouraging players to not equip rifle scopes on everything, and the cover system no longer gives you a view around the corner. Only your face. Health doesn't regenerate, but, rather than change their 'fuck with your contrast setting' damage representation system, you vision remains fucked up, though it does clear up into a slightly blurry black and white view.


Also, as SirSchmoopy said, the problem with adding realism into a FPS is that takes out a lot of the fun. Sure it'd be a cool system to have a complex of damage and life/death, but it's a lot more fun to just grab my M16 and put lead on target.


Also, sorry it's a bit sloppy, my dog into something he shouldn't have and I kinda lost my train of thought. Hopefully by the time you've responded I'll have written up a quick little description of a system I thought up a little while ago. Otherwise I'll just add it to this post.

 

[gigastrike]

I'm a fan of health bars. Being able to completly regenerate all of your health just seems wrong.

Now, what I think is the perfect health system would be something like deus ex, more specifically Mech Warriors 3. In that game, each part of your mech would take separate damage, but also add on to a total.

 

[Trace2010]

So, I'm not a big fan of "getting hurt, then running into a corner for a few seconds, then going back out" kinda thing, but, it's excusable for some games as long as it makes sense like having some kind of, uber amazing suit that heals you...but then again, games like Half-Life still have a "suit" that also heals you, but not..."completely"...even though it will administer antidotes, and detect fractures, etc. you still have to find healing stations for it to power up the suit and heal you.

I also like how games like F.E.A.R. and MGS3 do it, you get hurt, and your health won't heal up completely, unless you do something about it, but, it will steal heal up by itself..(to a certain point).

Then theres games like Deus Ex, where it is all about where you got hit, and then that affects you in some way. (get hit in the legs, you start limping, get hit in the chest, you take massive damage because, that's a vital area...get hit in the head...joo dai!!!)

There was also this one turn based game, I can't remember what it's called, but, what happens is, lets say you get hurt, BADLY, well, your health bar will slowly go down, and you have to do something about it before you run out of HP.

Now me, I'm a health bar guy, they aren't exactly realistic but, it's good enough, I prefer it more like the "Left 4 Dead" or "Full Spectrum Warrior" kind of health packs though (where you gotta stop and use them, and it takes a while, but then you get the health back.)

Although, this is the flaw with hit points....

I love the Monty Python reference!!

 

[dekkarax]

Resistance 1's health system; perfect balance between regenerating and standard health.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Real guns are only hideously inaccurate when they're in the hands of somebody who thinks they're in a John Woo film. And since you typically play a solider or space marine, you're somebody trained to shoot a gun, to shoot accurately and kill as many hostiles as possible with as a few bullets as possible.

From what I understand, most battles average in the thousands of rounds fired per actual casualty inflicted, and most casualties with small arms are NOT kills. (This is also a good reason why you don't use your infantry until you've softened up entrenched positions with lots of artillery fire. It's like starting out a painting with your smallest brush.)

Sure, you can be quite accurate on the shooting range, but it's a lot harder to shoot a fully automatic weapon when you're trying to stay under cover and so is the enemy and *everyone* is moving.

It detracts from a game, in my opinion, when the enemies *just shoot at you* instead of doing something logical like ducking the hell under cover when you lay down some fire and sprint. You take three hits, which are annoying and may cost you the battle, but the enemy shooting at you *dies*.

Individual enemies should be focused on staying alive, not on winning the battle for their comrades 10 minutes down the road by throwing themselves on your sword is all I'm saying. It would also make games a lot more engaging if they distinguish between different types of enemies with different types of AI in this fashion. Intelligent enemies spend most of their time taking cover and trying to figure out where the hell you are (if they do, things should get ugly, which should train people to take the initiative). Throwaway enemies like robots should pursue doggedly with no thought to their own survival. Non-intelligent enemies (animals) should be cowed and run away as soon as you hit them hard enough to hurt. (Granted, the really hungry ones may follow you to wait for an opportune moment, but they won't expose themselves to your weapons again if they can avoid it.)

Modeling health really depends on the combat system and the AI you have. You could potentially make a really fun game without health if you pay a lot of careful attention to the AI (or at least making it LOOK like there's an AI). The simpler it is, the more dependent you are on a health bar.